success ☼ Hudgens's story

[Hudgens]

Good day overall.

[Hudgens]

Another good day: no WD symptoms.

[alex]

You are getting out of the woods; therer's no doubt about it.

 

I'm glad for you.

[Hudgens]

Maybe. Some short periods of anxiety today, but not bad overall.

[mammaP]

It's great to see you getting better Hudgens 

[Hudgens]

Thanks.

[Hudgens]

Mild anxiety. Good mood level. A good day.

[Rhiannon]

Hudgens, thanks for posting your journey this way. I think it's probably helpful to people to see the patterns, how a slow taper works, how we can sometimes cut too much and get a little sick and then it takes a while to recover, but we do eventually, and then we cut again but try to be more careful, etc.  It definitely helps me, encourages me, to see that you go through the same things I do.

 

The challenge for me at these low doses is, it seems like the cuts I'm making are really small, because they're small in absolute numbers, but they can be high in percentage. For some reason it's a different kind of frustrating to be getting to such low numbers and still not be able to just quit! But, oh well. It's working so well for me and I'm doing so well. I'll just keep turtling along. It's good to have company.

 

:-)

[Hudgens]

Yeah, but I know that no matter how tiny my dosage gets, at some point I'll have to make a 100% drop. At least 2 more drops for me before that.

 

Today was good despite only 3 hours of sleep last night. Some mild anxiety at the moment, but that's like nothing anymore.

 

Merry Christmas!

[Hudgens]

Another 3-hour sleep last night. Had a low level of anxiety most of the day, a little uncomfortable. Worked out and got alot of work done, then talked on the phone for an hour to an old high school buddy. Invited her to dinner for this coming Monday. Thought of all the good things that happened today and recently, seems there are always more than I would have at first guessed.

 

Reading -Life With Picasso-. Hard to put down.

[Sweetcreature]

thank you Hudgens, when I start my taper I am going to remember the theraputic value in talking with friends and rely on that more than I have in the past (tendency to try and brave it alone - doesn't work though)

 

when are you planning your next drop?

[Hudgens]

Some time between the middle and end of January, but I could go see having to go through Feb., too.

[Hudgens]

Off and on anxiety last two days. Manageable.

[Hudgens]

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, a party and relatives at the house.

Anxiety here and there but hard to remember when.

Very tired now.

[Hudgens]

Another busy and good day. Slept better last night. small patches of anxiety and one hour or so of low mood.

And unfortunately I'm getting back to eating poorly, although I did join a local gym today-the steam room is

extremely relaxing.

[Hudgens]

Eating better last 2 days. Slept well Thursday night, not too well last night. And so it goes back and forth.

Mild to moderate episodes of anxiety. All manageable.

The next drop is going to get me really close to the end of all this, but can't do it for another few weeks at least.

Probably no later than the end of January, though.

Did alot of errands and got some work done today.

[Hudgens]

6 hours sleep last night and felt good all day.

[Lexy]

I've been following your posts and I'm so glad for hear that you are almost at the end of this journey.

 

Ive had such a hard time that it makes me wonder when ill be able to get off this drug.

I'd like to ask you a few questions.

When you were at about 45mg how were you tapering? What % and how long did you hold for?

I did read in you post that it wasn't until you got lower that you started experiencing WDs.

 

For six months now I've been lowering by 1mg/monthly and still experiencing nausea, vomiting, dizziness, mood swings, headaches, etc.

I'm on generic immediAte release. What the heck Am I doing wrong?

I do micro tapers by Shaving off the pill and weighing them on a digital scale. I shave off .25 of a mg and stay on that for a week

 

I'm on school break now and contemplating dropping .25mg but only holding 3 days till next drop.

I know when I get lower ilk have to so slower but at this rate it will take years to get off this crap.

I was only on it for 6 weeks at 150mgs and it's taken me a year to go from 75mg to 45.5mg.

 

Please help, I try to read other people's posts who are doing better than me and I feel you will be on your way to write your success story soon.

[Hudgens]

Whenever I make a drop I wait for 1 1/2-3 months before the next drop. This is because I adjust to the new dose very slowly, with many ups and downs

each drop.

 

It would be difficult to describe the measuring method I used for most of my tapering and up until about last February. It involved a sort of erasing of the solid tablet on a piece of sandpaper and then fitting it into a kind of callipers that could be tightened into a particular opening width. It worked very well, as I had no trouble until I got down to about 4-5 mgs. But then I had a lot of trouble very quickly. This however went away as soon as I back tracked a little on the dosage. The problem was that I began to speed up at the end of the 2nd year thinking that the hard part was over. I made (3) 50% drops in just a few months and subsequently hit a wall. 

 

Of course, for a while now I've been down to such a small amount each day that it's impossible to used the old method. Now I just go by eye-"is the little pile on the left the same as the little pile on the right?"

 

The only advise I could give you is not to be in too much of a hurry with the drops. I found that I suffered much less after I finally

accepted the fact that I had to let the tappering take its own time.

[Hudgens]

Began the new year with a 5-6 hour, straight through sleep, and a good day-except for a lot of irritability and moodiness-not very nice symptoms, but there are much worse. This is the year the tapering ends.

[Sweetcreature]

Good for you Huygens we are all behind you! This is your year

[Hudgens]

Thanks. A second good night's sleep in a row. Worked and went to the gym in the afternoon.

Irritability most of the day until about 6PM. Lightheadedness right now.

[Hudgens]

Only about 3 hrs sleep last night, but shoveled entire driveway, then worked setting up show at gallery most of evening.

Some anxiety late afternoon into evening. Still not back to eating very well, though.

[Hudgens]

A little more sleep last night. Some sudden cold sensitivity, and a few hours of anxiety with fluish feeling part of the time. I went to gym and artist reception and did fine. Strange to say, but if things never got any better than this, I would be more than OK with that. With the exception of the insomnia, that is. I feel like I'm back to having a normal life-hard to explain, but that's the feeling, even with all the symptoms.

[Hudgens]

Slept well last night, but woke up after the first few hours with the worst night sweats I've ever experienced. They made me feel so cold I couldn't even get out of bed the few seconds it would've taken to turn up the heat. Fortunately I had a heating pad on the floor beside my bed and it was still plugged in. That helped. I fell back to sleep and when I woke up again 3 hours later, I was dry as a bone. WD is strange.

 

Had a good day today. Eating just horribly again. I've been gluten free for about 10 days now and I've got this terrible craving for fats and sugar every night since. I'm not sure if they're related or not. Anyway, still not gaining weight back depite all the bad food.

 

Mood generally up lately.

[Hudgens]

Good night's sleep, then a pretty good day. Got a lot done and went to the gym, too.  Some anticipatory anxiety.

[Lexy]

You are almost there! Good job!

[Hudgens]

Some cold sensivity today. Seemed to cause anxiety, too. Lots of work done. Feeling very tired and alittle shakey at bed time.

[Hudgens]

A Good day, still some sensitivity to cold and some mild anxiety. Also seems to be taking forever to fall asleep anymore.

[Petunia]

Apart from that short wave of night sweats and flu like feelings a few days ago, it sounds like your symptoms are very mild now, almost not like symptoms at all, just normal human experiences really.

 

Thank you for the daily updates.

[Hudgens]

Well, I still do have the insomnia and mild zaps (6-10) as I'm relaxing toward sleep. However I know they're nothing like what others have talked about here, because they've never bothered me. What's happening right now is stabilization at my current dose, finally. If things stay the way they are for another week, I'll make my next to last drop (.06 mgs). The one after that (some time in March) will take me below a half of a tenth of a milligram. If all goes well I'll step off by mid-May.

 

2 bad nights for sleep (3 hours) in a row, but had a pretty good day and got a lot done.

[Hudgens]

Slept a little better last night, worked all day and night, feeling good.

[Hudgens]

Began new dose of .06 mgs.

Can't seem to add this to my Signature, but I guess that's not so important, really.

One more drop to go!-that's what's important.

[Hudgens]

Figured out the signature, but unintentionally erased it. Otherwise having a good day.

[Hudgens]

Third day since next to last drop, not bad, slept poorly last night, some lightheadedness in afternoon, ears ringing more than usual. Mood good, some forgetfulness.

[Hudgens]

Lasy two days good-4th day since last drop. Can't sleep though.